Foiled!

One sunny Sunday afternoon I found myself a little bored.  Never fear, there were some bikes in the shed and I had a hankering to visit Takapari Road so that meant that the correct tool was the WR.

After topping up the tank, I thrashed my way out the valley towards my target.  As I fair motored my way along, I once again couldn't help but grin at how much fun you can have on a little bike with no fairing and less than 30hp - and I hadn't even got offroad yet!

Eventually I was able to turn towards the ranges and start climbing up Takapari Road.  The first bit is easy gravel which then (after the first gate) changes to a farm track.  The track looked like it had even had a bit of work done on it and the little digger parked slightly off to the side pretty much proved the point.

At the top gate, the track the heads up to the bush and becomes much more challenging.  There currently is a gate that prevents larger vehicles from continuing any further, but this is no barrier for a Mighty Mouse.  We easily rode around it and through a deep puddle before hitting some pretty rough stuff.

I was really out of practice and I really fouled up the first snotty bit and of course, stalled.  I'd like to think that I would normally have flown up it (particularly on the now departed 450 😢) but not today.  I'd ended up in a bit of a yucky position and simply restarting the bike and having another bash was probably just going to result in going nowhere (picture jammed up against a big step) so I decided to turn the bike around (much heaving and sweating) and chicken out on the whole idea...what a wuss!

Back at the gate, it was time to enjoy the scenery:

Back on the seal again, I decided that I hadn't had enough of the Mouse yet so turned right and rode up the valley a bit more before turning onto Makoura Road and then Pohangina Road.

The short bit of Makoura Road (gravel) I did is great on the WR as you can take it darn nearly flat out and while Pohangina is a little slower there's some great views and great corners.  There was also a surprise...

My favourite bit of Pohangina Road was closed!  And I thought that I was going to have to ride all the way back and around the valley again - a couple of years ago Cyclone Gabrielle took out the bridge that crosses the river to Totara Park got washed away:

But to my surprise, someone had been busy!  I had to take several photos!

 

So, my route home wasn't going to be quite as long and I got to cross the new bridge before buzzing my way home on the seal.  I nice little ride on my favourite 250.